Guidelines for a quality audit

Introduction

ISO 9004: 2009 Management for sustained success. A quality management approach: it is the international standard that promotes self-assessment as an important tool for reviewing the maturity level of the organization, covering its leadership, strategy, management system, resources and processes to identify strong and weak areas and opportunities for improvement, innovation, or both.

Every organization wants to demonstrate the effectiveness of the quality management system implemented and therefore the quality audit is necessary, which aims to help the entity establish and improve its policies, objectives and other quality points.

This helps the organization to have confidence about its quality system and to meet customer requirements. Also, they can obtain quality management certificates.

The Auditor is the person who will be able to carry out the audit work in order to monitor the legality, honesty, timeliness, performance and transparency in the exercise of resources, as well as the behavior of the people involved in administrative processes and procedures.

Objectives of the Audit

The audit must be done according to objectives defined by the client (company or audited person) The objectives and scope must be communicated to the auditee prior to the audit A quality audit is based on defined and documented information, The audit is do only if the auditor considers that there is sufficient and appropriate information; if there are adequate resources to support the information and if there is cooperation from the audited entity.

Auditor Profile and Responsibilities

The team that will carry out the audit consists of the auditor and other members, who must be objective and free from conflicts of interest during the audit. Also members must have knowledge, skills and experience to fulfill the position.

The auditor has the following responsibilities and activities to perform.

You must communicate with the client the scope of the audit; have the necessary supporting information; have an audit team and direct its activities; prepare working documents; make audit reports with the client.

Responsibilities of the auditee

Define the audit objectives; provide the necessary resources to carry out the audit: approve the audit plan: receive the audit report; inform employees about the audit and its objectives; ask your staff to serve as guides to the auditors within the company and give access to auditors on the premises.

Scope of the Audit

The scope of the audit should be established between the client and the auditor. The scope are limits of the work to be carried out, with which the objectives can be achieved, including the period to be reviewed and the programs to vent.

Audit plan

An audit plan must be communicated to the client, who must give their authorization to carry it out.

The plan should include: the objectives and scope of the audit; which criteria are used to perform the audit, identification of the organization's units and areas to be audited; identify those responsible for the quality aspect; identify important quality aspects and reference documents; the time and duration of the interviews and inspections; date and place of the audits; meeting schedule and report content.

The work programs are the result of planning and contain the procedures that will be used, the time, when they will be applied and the personnel who will execute them. Specific review schedules must also be developed in writing, making audits efficient.

Work document

The working documents used by the auditor must contain: how the evidence supporting the results will be documented; procedures used to evaluate and records of meetings.

All working documents must be kept until the audit is completed and confidential information must be safeguarded.

They must be done clearly, neatly and accurately; They must contain the data referring to the analysis, verification, opinion and conclusions on the facts, transactions or specific situations examined, as well as on the deviations.

Activities

Initial meeting

For the purpose of presenting the auditors to management; review the scope, objectives and audit plan and establish the times; briefly inform the method and procedures to be used; request the resources and facilities that are needed; and request the cooperation of the auditee.

Detection of Evidence

The appropriate information should be documented as audit evidence. The information that is evidence must have quality and quantity.

Audit evidence should be collected through interviews, document review, and observation of activities and conditions. Additionally, this collected information should be verified with supporting information from independent sources.

The auditor should exercise professional care when following up on signs of wrongdoing, so as not to interfere with investigations and / or legal proceedings that may be undertaken in the future.

Audit Results

All audit evidence should be reviewed to determine where the QMS audit criteria are not met. The audit team must document and support evidence that it did not meet the criteria.

The evidence found during the quality audit will only be a sample of the information available, this because the quality audit is carried out during a limited period of time and with limited resources.

The auditor to take into account the limitations associated with the evidence of the verified audit and the reliability of the results, to plan and execute the audit.

Sufficient evidence must be obtained so that the individual results of the audit can affect any conclusions reached.

Final meeting

After the phase of gathering evidence and before preparing an audit report, a meeting should be held with management and those responsible for the audited areas in order to present the results of the audit and resolve any disagreements.

Report

The results of the audit must be communicated to the client in a written report, which must include: the client's data; the agreed objectives and scope; the criteria against which the audit was performed; the period it took; the dates; the audit team; the company personnel who participated; a summary of the audit process; the conclusions; and declaration of confidentiality of the information.

conclusion

The audit is of utmost importance to the activities of the company and helps us to provide better service to customers. For the company it must mean a philosophy of continuous improvement.

In addition, having a good quality control is a guarantee for the company as well as for the clients, knowing that the product or service is as required. Therefore, it is important that the auditor and the company have good communication and the greatest possible cooperation to provide the resources that are needed. Finally it is necessary that the auditor and his team are well trained.